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Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism
A passionately urgent call for all of us to unlearn imperialism and repair the violent world we share, from one of our most compelling political theorists
In this theoretical tour-de-force, renowned scholar Ariella Aïsha Azoulay calls on us to recognize the imperial foundations of knowledge and to refuse its strictures and its many violences.
Azoulay argues that the institutions that make our world, from archives and museums to ideas of sovereignty and human rights to history itself, are all dependent on imperial modes of thinking. Imperialism has segmented populations into differentially governed groups, continually emphasized the possibility of progress while it tries to destroy what came before, and voraciously seeks out the new by sealing the past away in dusty archival boxes and the glass vitrines of museums.
By practicing what she calls potential history, Azoulay argues that we can still refuse the original imperial violence that shattered communities, lives, and worlds, from native peoples in the Americas at the moment of conquest to the Congo ruled by Belgium's brutal King Léopold II, from dispossessed Palestinians in 1948 to displaced refugees in our own day. In Potential History, Azoulay travels alongside historical companions—an old Palestinian man who refused to leave his village in 1948, an anonymous woman in war-ravaged Berlin, looted objects and documents torn from their worlds and now housed in archives and museums—to chart the ways imperialism has sought to order time, space, and politics.
Rather than looking for a new future, Azoulay calls upon us to rewind history and unlearn our imperial rights, to continue to refuse imperial violence by making present what was invented as “past” and making the repair of torn worlds the substance of politics.
In this theoretical tour-de-force, renowned scholar Ariella Aïsha Azoulay calls on us to recognize the imperial foundations of knowledge and to refuse its strictures and its many violences.
Azoulay argues that the institutions that make our world, from archives and museums to ideas of sovereignty and human rights to history itself, are all dependent on imperial modes of thinking. Imperialism has segmented populations into differentially governed groups, continually emphasized the possibility of progress while it tries to destroy what came before, and voraciously seeks out the new by sealing the past away in dusty archival boxes and the glass vitrines of museums.
By practicing what she calls potential history, Azoulay argues that we can still refuse the original imperial violence that shattered communities, lives, and worlds, from native peoples in the Americas at the moment of conquest to the Congo ruled by Belgium's brutal King Léopold II, from dispossessed Palestinians in 1948 to displaced refugees in our own day. In Potential History, Azoulay travels alongside historical companions—an old Palestinian man who refused to leave his village in 1948, an anonymous woman in war-ravaged Berlin, looted objects and documents torn from their worlds and now housed in archives and museums—to chart the ways imperialism has sought to order time, space, and politics.
Rather than looking for a new future, Azoulay calls upon us to rewind history and unlearn our imperial rights, to continue to refuse imperial violence by making present what was invented as “past” and making the repair of torn worlds the substance of politics.
657 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 1, 2019
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November 20, 2021
One of the great myths of academic and political work, especially when it comes to theoretical work, is the one of the transformative genius whose singular insights revolutionise what we do and how we do and understand it, when the reality is small developments usually drawn on new connections and insights while standing on the shoulder of giants (to invoke Newton). This means that it is a rare singular piece of writing that give me cause to stop and think that my understanding of a theoretical or conceptual point has to be reordered. Even as I write that I know that the myth is so strong that there’s an inner voice shouting, ‘damn, that’s pretty smug’, and more than anything else that ‘smugness’ is probably a sign that I read (and sometimes even use) a lot of this stuff. Potential History, Unlearning Imperialism gave me cause to do so.
Part of the strength lies in Azoulay’s breadth of vision, drawing on her practice as a photographer and scholarly training in politics, to weave together fields of analysis that we would not usually consider in the same breath – epistemologies, the remit of philosophy and notions of human rights and of sovereignty, the remit of politics, are discussed alongside museums and archives, the remit of history and its related fields. Part of the strength lies in what Azoulay does with these concepts and fields, so whereas in my patch we know that the archive is an imperial construction (Nigeria’s pre-independence/colonial era archives are, of course, held in London not Lagos marking the continuing British empire), she goes a step further to remind us that when we use those archives/maintain those collections we are acting as and sustaining imperialism also. It’s a demanding book, and at 630 or so pages one to set quite some time aside for – but it is totally worth it.
Framed by an opening conceptual introduction setting up the issues and problems where she invokes the shutter as a photo-creating moment that needs its unseen before and after to make sense as a continuing metaphor (and not metaphor) to explore these issues, and a concluding chapter that asks the always important ‘so what’ questions, there are three stages of the analysis. She opens with a discussion of the museum and the archive as places of imperial plunder and sustenance, where she makes, for me, two vital points (at least in terms of what got my synapses firing). The first was that in both the archive and museum we are dealing not with the past but with the commons, that the stories they tell and that we tell have a continuing presence and impacts if not more. The second is that the notion of doing ‘alternative’ histories is limiting in that it suggests that “one’s predecessors could not be allies in a common struggle” (p189). There is much, much more here – including some really intriguing work with photographs building on the notions of silences in ‘the archive’ where she discusses ‘photos not taken’.
From these explorations of the museum and archive as perpetuations of imperialism, in both their form and their epistemological control, she shifts to consider tools and methods. Here she builds on the notion of predecessors as allies to explore the idea of potential history not as what might be, but as what is but cannot be told using the existing conceptual tools and approaches. Here she invokes the idea of the regime-made disaster as a tool that is useful to “undo the solidity of institutionalised political concepts woven uncritically into historical narratives” (p 359). Regime-made disasters matter here because they are not extraordinary events, but continuing – and for her Gaza is the paradigmatic case. There is much to muse on here including about the ways in which we think, where we think from, and how we have so many taken for granted aspects of what we do.
Finally, she shifts focus to consider notions of sovereignty and human rights as ways to make sense of how those forms of imperial practice grounded in what she calls ‘the differential principle’ where it is the practice of differentiation, not the factors held to make difference, that is the defining aspect of the persistence of dominance. Here she draws heavily on Hannah Arendt. That is to say, sovereignty and human rights are both sites of differentiation and sites of struggle. It is this discussion that leads into the ‘so what’ final discussion. While it may sound abstract, the discussion is grounded both in practice and in a set of ‘what if?’ questions including what would happen if historians, or photographers, or the governed went on strike? What happens to these regimes of power if we withdraw our labour that sustains them? They’re unsettling thought experiments.
There is so much to glean from both the case and its form, from Azoulay’s positionality and her practice, from the questions asked, the silences explored, the potentialities posed and the struggles invoked. I’ll be delving into it, inflicting it on friends and others in my fields of work and returning to these ideas time and again – if for no other reason than the idea of potential histories as ones that make allies of past and present actors is a conceptually rich notion that disrupts many of the taken for granted aspects of what we do. Standing on the shoulders of giants or not, this case has challenged me to rethink much of the scholarly work I do and given me a frame to make better sense of where my challenges so far have taken me. I can’t ask for more than that.
Part of the strength lies in Azoulay’s breadth of vision, drawing on her practice as a photographer and scholarly training in politics, to weave together fields of analysis that we would not usually consider in the same breath – epistemologies, the remit of philosophy and notions of human rights and of sovereignty, the remit of politics, are discussed alongside museums and archives, the remit of history and its related fields. Part of the strength lies in what Azoulay does with these concepts and fields, so whereas in my patch we know that the archive is an imperial construction (Nigeria’s pre-independence/colonial era archives are, of course, held in London not Lagos marking the continuing British empire), she goes a step further to remind us that when we use those archives/maintain those collections we are acting as and sustaining imperialism also. It’s a demanding book, and at 630 or so pages one to set quite some time aside for – but it is totally worth it.
Framed by an opening conceptual introduction setting up the issues and problems where she invokes the shutter as a photo-creating moment that needs its unseen before and after to make sense as a continuing metaphor (and not metaphor) to explore these issues, and a concluding chapter that asks the always important ‘so what’ questions, there are three stages of the analysis. She opens with a discussion of the museum and the archive as places of imperial plunder and sustenance, where she makes, for me, two vital points (at least in terms of what got my synapses firing). The first was that in both the archive and museum we are dealing not with the past but with the commons, that the stories they tell and that we tell have a continuing presence and impacts if not more. The second is that the notion of doing ‘alternative’ histories is limiting in that it suggests that “one’s predecessors could not be allies in a common struggle” (p189). There is much, much more here – including some really intriguing work with photographs building on the notions of silences in ‘the archive’ where she discusses ‘photos not taken’.
From these explorations of the museum and archive as perpetuations of imperialism, in both their form and their epistemological control, she shifts to consider tools and methods. Here she builds on the notion of predecessors as allies to explore the idea of potential history not as what might be, but as what is but cannot be told using the existing conceptual tools and approaches. Here she invokes the idea of the regime-made disaster as a tool that is useful to “undo the solidity of institutionalised political concepts woven uncritically into historical narratives” (p 359). Regime-made disasters matter here because they are not extraordinary events, but continuing – and for her Gaza is the paradigmatic case. There is much to muse on here including about the ways in which we think, where we think from, and how we have so many taken for granted aspects of what we do.
Finally, she shifts focus to consider notions of sovereignty and human rights as ways to make sense of how those forms of imperial practice grounded in what she calls ‘the differential principle’ where it is the practice of differentiation, not the factors held to make difference, that is the defining aspect of the persistence of dominance. Here she draws heavily on Hannah Arendt. That is to say, sovereignty and human rights are both sites of differentiation and sites of struggle. It is this discussion that leads into the ‘so what’ final discussion. While it may sound abstract, the discussion is grounded both in practice and in a set of ‘what if?’ questions including what would happen if historians, or photographers, or the governed went on strike? What happens to these regimes of power if we withdraw our labour that sustains them? They’re unsettling thought experiments.
There is so much to glean from both the case and its form, from Azoulay’s positionality and her practice, from the questions asked, the silences explored, the potentialities posed and the struggles invoked. I’ll be delving into it, inflicting it on friends and others in my fields of work and returning to these ideas time and again – if for no other reason than the idea of potential histories as ones that make allies of past and present actors is a conceptually rich notion that disrupts many of the taken for granted aspects of what we do. Standing on the shoulders of giants or not, this case has challenged me to rethink much of the scholarly work I do and given me a frame to make better sense of where my challenges so far have taken me. I can’t ask for more than that.
November 19, 2021
Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism, A. A. Azoulay
قبل ثلاثة أشهر تقريبا، شاهدت فيلما وثائقيا حول عضو الكنيسيت الإسرائيلي السابق المفكر العربي عزمي بشارة، تعرفت من خلاله على المخرجة أرييلا عائشة أزولاي، لأعلم لاحقا أنها فنانة وكاتبة استثنائية وأستاذة في الأدب المقارن والثقافة الحديثة والإعلام في جامعة براون.
قرأت لها مباشرةً مقالا حول التصوير:
(What is a photograph? What is photography?)
كان بمثابة مدخل إلى عالمها المتفرد ومتعدد المجالات. وشاهدت باندهاش عددا لا بأس به من محاضراتها على اليوتوب.
لقد كنت أعي جيدا ما أنا مقبل عليه حين رأيت عناوين كتبها، إنه مشروع فكري متكامل في نقد عالمنا العنيف والمشاركة في تأسيس فرع معرفي مستحدث، فأجلت مرارا قرار اختيار كتاب محدد من كتبها السبعة (المترجمة إلى الإنجليزية)..
ثم قررت الأسبوع الماضي اقتحام كتابها الأخير:
Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism 2019
والذي بقدر ما أدهشني عالمه المتفرد، فقد لاقيت صعوبات كثيرة في استيعاب كل أفكاره، ليس لإنجليزيتي المتواضعة فقط، بل ولتعدد مستويات قراءته وشساعة حدود المجالات التي يستفيد منها؛ ولذلك سأحاول أن أبدي بعض التأملات التي طرقت الذهن أثناء قراءته عوضا عن تقديمه بشكل دقيق.
- يمكن بناء أطروحة الكتاب المركزية على الشكل التالي:
إمكانية بناء تاريخ محتمل يشكل النقيض الموضوعي لما تسميه البروفسورة "بالتاريخ الإمبراطوري" الذي رسمت الإمبريالية من خلاله نظرتنا إلى العالم، وجعل هذا "الماضي المحتمل" إمكانية جديرة بالنضال من أجلها. فإصلاح العالم الحالي لا يمكن إلا من خلال الكشف عن المخيال الاستعماري الكامن في النظرة التي تفرضها الإمبريالية العالمية وإعادة صياغة الماضي في استقلال عن نفوذ أفكارها.
- تستكشف آرييلا الأسس الاستعمارية للمعرفة داعية إلى نبذ الإمبريالية من خلال الكشف عن بناها المعلنة والضمنية، بغية التخلص النهائي من عنفها الذي يلوث عالمنا منذ طرد اليهود والمسلمين واكتشاف أمريكا سنة 1492.
- مستفيدة من تفكيك خطابها، تحاجج أرييلا بأن المؤسسات الحديثة مثل الفن والأرشيف والمتاحف والمؤسسات السياسية والتعليمية وهيئات الخبراء وأفكار مثل السيادة وحقوق الإنسان وحتى التاريخ نفسه، كلها تعتمد على أنماط التفكير الإمبريالية التي تقسم البشر إلى مجموعات مختلفة: أبناء الإمبراطورية وهوامشها. مذكرة في هذا السياق بمآسي العبودية قديما والاستعمار والتطهير العرقي ووصولا إلى موجات اللاجئين حديثا.
- يحمل الكتاب بشكل واضح همّا أكاديميا يتجسد في أطروحته سابقة الذكر، لكنه يحمل أيضا همّا شخصيا أكيدا تكابده الباحثة التي تبنت اسم جدتها (عائشة) تأكيدا لهويتها المتعددة ولحقها في "ماضيها المحتمل".
- تجاهد أرييلا بأدوات أكاديمية من فروع معرفية متباعدة من النظرية السياسية إلى فلسفة التاريخ ونظرية التقدم وعلم التصوير.. من أجل التواصل بشكل مختلف مع ما حدث في الماضي "والتصرف بشكل مشترك كما لو كنا نتشارك في نفس الفترة الزمنية مع أولئك الذين رفضوا التجريد من الملكية."
- حين تعرفت على هذه المفكرة الاستثنائية من خلال فيلمها الوثائقي ومقالها حول التصوير سالف الذكر وعدد من محاضراتها على اليوتوب، رأيتني في الحلم جالسا أمام محاضرة من محاضراتها. حين استفقت عرفت أن شيئا ما في نظام تفكيري قد تزعزع بسبب أفكارها الثورية.
- إنه كتاب لا يقرأ مرة واحدة، ولا مرتين.. إنه كتاب يرجع إليه بين كل فترتي انبهارٍ بكل "جديد".
قبل ثلاثة أشهر تقريبا، شاهدت فيلما وثائقيا حول عضو الكنيسيت الإسرائيلي السابق المفكر العربي عزمي بشارة، تعرفت من خلاله على المخرجة أرييلا عائشة أزولاي، لأعلم لاحقا أنها فنانة وكاتبة استثنائية وأستاذة في الأدب المقارن والثقافة الحديثة والإعلام في جامعة براون.
قرأت لها مباشرةً مقالا حول التصوير:
(What is a photograph? What is photography?)
كان بمثابة مدخل إلى عالمها المتفرد ومتعدد المجالات. وشاهدت باندهاش عددا لا بأس به من محاضراتها على اليوتوب.
لقد كنت أعي جيدا ما أنا مقبل عليه حين رأيت عناوين كتبها، إنه مشروع فكري متكامل في نقد عالمنا العنيف والمشاركة في تأسيس فرع معرفي مستحدث، فأجلت مرارا قرار اختيار كتاب محدد من كتبها السبعة (المترجمة إلى الإنجليزية)..
ثم قررت الأسبوع الماضي اقتحام كتابها الأخير:
Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism 2019
والذي بقدر ما أدهشني عالمه المتفرد، فقد لاقيت صعوبات كثيرة في استيعاب كل أفكاره، ليس لإنجليزيتي المتواضعة فقط، بل ولتعدد مستويات قراءته وشساعة حدود المجالات التي يستفيد منها؛ ولذلك سأحاول أن أبدي بعض التأملات التي طرقت الذهن أثناء قراءته عوضا عن تقديمه بشكل دقيق.
- يمكن بناء أطروحة الكتاب المركزية على الشكل التالي:
إمكانية بناء تاريخ محتمل يشكل النقيض الموضوعي لما تسميه البروفسورة "بالتاريخ الإمبراطوري" الذي رسمت الإمبريالية من خلاله نظرتنا إلى العالم، وجعل هذا "الماضي المحتمل" إمكانية جديرة بالنضال من أجلها. فإصلاح العالم الحالي لا يمكن إلا من خلال الكشف عن المخيال الاستعماري الكامن في النظرة التي تفرضها الإمبريالية العالمية وإعادة صياغة الماضي في استقلال عن نفوذ أفكارها.
- تستكشف آرييلا الأسس الاستعمارية للمعرفة داعية إلى نبذ الإمبريالية من خلال الكشف عن بناها المعلنة والضمنية، بغية التخلص النهائي من عنفها الذي يلوث عالمنا منذ طرد اليهود والمسلمين واكتشاف أمريكا سنة 1492.
- مستفيدة من تفكيك خطابها، تحاجج أرييلا بأن المؤسسات الحديثة مثل الفن والأرشيف والمتاحف والمؤسسات السياسية والتعليمية وهيئات الخبراء وأفكار مثل السيادة وحقوق الإنسان وحتى التاريخ نفسه، كلها تعتمد على أنماط التفكير الإمبريالية التي تقسم البشر إلى مجموعات مختلفة: أبناء الإمبراطورية وهوامشها. مذكرة في هذا السياق بمآسي العبودية قديما والاستعمار والتطهير العرقي ووصولا إلى موجات اللاجئين حديثا.
- يحمل الكتاب بشكل واضح همّا أكاديميا يتجسد في أطروحته سابقة الذكر، لكنه يحمل أيضا همّا شخصيا أكيدا تكابده الباحثة التي تبنت اسم جدتها (عائشة) تأكيدا لهويتها المتعددة ولحقها في "ماضيها المحتمل".
- تجاهد أرييلا بأدوات أكاديمية من فروع معرفية متباعدة من النظرية السياسية إلى فلسفة التاريخ ونظرية التقدم وعلم التصوير.. من أجل التواصل بشكل مختلف مع ما حدث في الماضي "والتصرف بشكل مشترك كما لو كنا نتشارك في نفس الفترة الزمنية مع أولئك الذين رفضوا التجريد من الملكية."
- حين تعرفت على هذه المفكرة الاستثنائية من خلال فيلمها الوثائقي ومقالها حول التصوير سالف الذكر وعدد من محاضراتها على اليوتوب، رأيتني في الحلم جالسا أمام محاضرة من محاضراتها. حين استفقت عرفت أن شيئا ما في نظام تفكيري قد تزعزع بسبب أفكارها الثورية.
- إنه كتاب لا يقرأ مرة واحدة، ولا مرتين.. إنه كتاب يرجع إليه بين كل فترتي انبهارٍ بكل "جديد".
September 23, 2022
Sucede algo curioso cuando una (yo) descubre que la autora es judía (me tomó un tercio del libro enterarme). No sé si algo bueno o malo (¿qué es eso?), simplemente algo curioso. El libro se lee distinto. Voy a pensar más en ello.
August 1, 2020
The astonishing thoughts of a very simple mind. Somehow Imperialism can be fixed by Imperialism? So in the 19th century some people thought of themselves as superior to others and so in the 21st century the others are proven to be incapable to get out of the hole without the effort of the grandchildren of those who thought themselves as superior?
May 26, 2025
no tinc paraules, m’he dedicat a subratllar gran part del llibre. desmonta tantes coses que no puc. en fi l’excusa aquesta que som nomes espectadors de la violencia del mon ja no val, som perpetradors i ho explica molt i molt be. deixo un trosset molt petit de les sis-centes pagines:
“The labor of forgiveness should not be expected to come from those who have long commanded the structures of its deferral. Israel’s state apparatus, to take one example, is a monument that must fall. And it is not upon Israeli governments to approve or deny how it will be taken down to make room for a regime that does not reproduce the privileges of the perpetrators and their descendants, or how the Palestinians will return to their lands. Until that day, Israeli Jews, individuals and associations should step back from imagining that they are in a position to give “reparations” to Palestinians and should instead unlearn their citinzenship and their privileges that were generated and maintained by an unforgivable regime” (AZOULAY 2019, 573).
llegiu-lo si us plau si us plau si us plau (marti tu sobretot que ets la meva unica esperança en aquesta aplicacio)
“The labor of forgiveness should not be expected to come from those who have long commanded the structures of its deferral. Israel’s state apparatus, to take one example, is a monument that must fall. And it is not upon Israeli governments to approve or deny how it will be taken down to make room for a regime that does not reproduce the privileges of the perpetrators and their descendants, or how the Palestinians will return to their lands. Until that day, Israeli Jews, individuals and associations should step back from imagining that they are in a position to give “reparations” to Palestinians and should instead unlearn their citinzenship and their privileges that were generated and maintained by an unforgivable regime” (AZOULAY 2019, 573).
llegiu-lo si us plau si us plau si us plau (marti tu sobretot que ets la meva unica esperança en aquesta aplicacio)
March 11, 2025
A great interrogation of how imperialism has penetrated our everyday lives. Azoulay takes historians, archivists, and museum curators to task for their role in perpetuating this problem. She provides an interesting methodology to solving these problems, but leaves us to actually implement the change.
April 11, 2022
Este comentario se refiere al libro Historia potencia y otros ensayos de Ariella Azoulay publicado en México por CONACULTA.
Llegué a este libro mientras revisaba una entrevista de Verónica Gerber para un trabajo de la maestría. En el texto recomendaba algunos libros entre los que estaba este. Lo compré sin saber mucho de qué era y se trata de ensayos a propósito de la fotografía, el archivo y la ciudadanía. Me gustó bastante, en el caso de la edición mexicana es muy barata, 120 pesos o algo así.
Si les gusta lo de Forensic Architecture, lo de Fontcuberta y temas relacionados a la ciudadanía, lo vn disfrutar mucho. Aunque se centra en el conflicto entre Israel y Palestina, creo que la lectura podría detonar muchos proyectos en relación a la violencia que se vive en nuestro país.
Aquí sí aplica la máxima de bueno, bonito y barato. Lo recomiendo.
Llegué a este libro mientras revisaba una entrevista de Verónica Gerber para un trabajo de la maestría. En el texto recomendaba algunos libros entre los que estaba este. Lo compré sin saber mucho de qué era y se trata de ensayos a propósito de la fotografía, el archivo y la ciudadanía. Me gustó bastante, en el caso de la edición mexicana es muy barata, 120 pesos o algo así.
Si les gusta lo de Forensic Architecture, lo de Fontcuberta y temas relacionados a la ciudadanía, lo vn disfrutar mucho. Aunque se centra en el conflicto entre Israel y Palestina, creo que la lectura podría detonar muchos proyectos en relación a la violencia que se vive en nuestro país.
Aquí sí aplica la máxima de bueno, bonito y barato. Lo recomiendo.
May 24, 2020
This book gave me so much inspiration and has given me the vocabulary that I needed to unlearn imperialism. Although I was dragging myself to read it in some areas and it can be dry as a cracker, I recommend it to everyone.
December 13, 2025
An important call to action to challenge the imperial modes of knowledge which have defined the last 500 years at great cost to much of the global South and the viability of life on Earth. Azoulay identifies how only a reckoning with how history has been construed and developed (manifested in the form of the archive as generally understood) has been a key part of underpinning the imperial project, and how there can be no possibility of another future without rethinking our relationship to the injustice which props up the present order. Essential reading in an age where "whiteness", in its various forms, has come to have ever more horrific effects on its victims.
August 21, 2024
In Australia, one of the things that you will often hear is that it is unfair to blame white children for the crimes of their ancestors. This was used as the reason one of our prime ministers used for not saying sorry for the stolen generations or any of the other crimes committed against our First Nations’ peoples. The logic seems difficult to argue against. Take me as a case in point. I only arrived in Australia in 1968 – at about the time the White Australia policy was being dismantled. The last government sponsored massacre of Aboriginal people had been committed 40 years before that – 35 years before I was born. I could hardly be said to be to blame for any of these actions – even if children were still being stolen from Aboriginal mothers well into the time after I’d arrived here. Those were different times and people had different understandings of morality and moral obligations. Anyway, they were acting in good faith, and so do we really have a right to judge them by the standards of contemporary morality? We can all agree a wrong was committed, but to what extent can the current generation be held morally responsible – and be expected to express sorrow – for actions they had no role in committing? And so Sorry Day only occurred once that government had been voted out and another voted in.
The answer to these questions, and why saying sorry was so important, is that white people still continue today to be privileged by the crimes of the past. We still have the land, we still have better life expectations on virtually any measure you choose. And I benefit from those privileges regardless of my active participation in the crimes that provided them to me – purely due to the colour of my skin. That is one of the hardest things to see. We are much more aware of the benefits we think others have than those we have received. A survey published today said, “When asked why Indigenous Australians experience disadvantage, 58% said it was the result of personal decisions they make, while 42% said it was systemic: a product of colonial history and ongoing discrimination.” Australia is a meritocracy – how could this result be otherwise?
And that is what this book is about – unlearning imperialism, unlearning white privilege, unlearning what is otherwise taken-for-granted. The actual title is important to think about too – Potential History. Not actual history – we already know that is written by the victors, but potential history, the history that would be written if those without a voice were provided with the opportunity to document their pasts, their worlds.
Unlearning is not the same as forgetting. Unlearning requires us to remember. But we need new ways to remember, or rather to (re)collect the past. That is, the facts are mostly all there – although, we will see this is rarely completely true. The facts just need to be reordered into other narratives and stories that allow us to make better sense of the richness of history.
This book speaks a lot about the archive. Now, for a long time I worked as an archivist. An archivist finds ways to preserve documents and records. These words are much more literal than people often take them to be. We tend to think of records and documents are bits of paper – and so any bit of paper will do. But records literally record something – generally a decision – and the same is true of documents. So, archivists are obsessed with provenance. That is, if I am an archivist for a particular organisation I will retain documents that record decision made by that organisation, and not really be too concerned with those from other organisations. I may choose to retain other documents that provide context, but these might well be ephemera, rather than documentation as records of decisions. The context they provide is all well and good, but it is secondary and of limited relevance to the main point of the archive – that is, documenting the past. This is the first level of filtering that determines what is retained in the archive and what is dispose of from the archive. Actually, in Archives speak, all decisions of retention and disposition are decision of disposal – the document is either disposed of in the bin or it is disposed of in an archive box. Retention and disposition are two sides of the same coin. Other decisions are secondary, but no less important. How will I classify various records? Which series will this particular record be deemed to belong to? How does this particular record document the decisions made? These are important because they help explain why certain documents are retained and others tossed. The implications these decisions have for those without power – without the power to make decisions – should be clear. If they did not make decisions there can be no record of those decisions. Retention is impossible for documents that do not exist. This idea forms a large part of this book – the idea that many events occurred, for example, the rape of German women after the Second World War, but no photographs were taken of these events and so histories skirt around these events since they exist within a twilight world that is not recorded and not documented. How do you open the archive and record those decisions? How do you show photographs that were never taken?
Foucault begins The Order of Things with an extended quote from a short story by Borges about a Chinese Encyclopedia in which animals are classified with reference to how they look from a distance or whether the emperor owns them or not. The point being this means of classifying is totally at odds with Western notions of classification and with ‘common sense’. Common sense is something Einstein referred to as the deposit of prejudice laid down in the mind before the age of 18. Common sense works in the interests of power. It classifies according to the dictates of power. As such, the victors do more than merely write history – they create the conditions upon which any logical history can be written too. Here are my classifications – now, write your history… Inevitably, the history you write will need to match those prejudices and classifications. Their constraints will be invisible to you since they are, as Bourdieu would say, ideas you think with, rather than about. The trap is complete.
So, how do we go about unlearning these categories, particularly when so many of the records and documents of these alternative histories either do not exist or are defined as peripheral by the categorisation principles that created the archive in the first place? This is where the ‘potential’ in potential histories comes to the fore. This is where our openness to hearing these alternative facts and orderings allows us to challenge our taken-for-granted understandings of the past and see that other orderings and classifications are possible.
This book is written by a Jewish woman from occupied Palestine. She is seeking, at least in part, in this book to unlearn her privilege. And she acknowledges that this is not a simple task. The history of separation between her and the past of the people whose land has been dispossessed has forced certain ways of thinking upon her that are likely to constantly trip her up in her conscious unlearning. Worse than this, the separation that is at the heart of the Zionist project is not merely between Jews and Palestinians, but also between Jews and their own histories – histories that dated back to prior to the occupation. She has, for instance, no knowledge of the languages of her grandparents -who all learnt Hebrew and unlearned their native tongues. She begins by saying she has no objects in her possession of the worlds her families came from. This is not the same as the Palestinians who live in a land where the towns and villages they grew up in have been bulldozed to the ground and turned into national parks, which is obviously much worse, but it still remains a process of eradication and denial. Unlearning is not a process of forgetting, but rather of learning anew. In many ways, the task before a Jew in occupied Palestine is harder than that of a Palestinian, since privilege is reinforced by common sense and documented in archives that have consciously refused to record this alternative past.
This process of unlearning is confronting. It makes demands that are more than just listening to alternative stories. It also demands learning to imagine a future where multiple stories are allowed to coexist. And more than this, to imagine a future where Jews in occupied Palestine are finally liberated from their own past. In much the same way that Australia will never be free of its past until some form of reconciliation, truth telling and recompense has been paid to those we have dispossessed. The horrors and crimes of the past live on as ghosts. We are haunted by them. As Derrida said in Specters of Marx, these ghosts provided us with an hauntology (something that sounds like ontology in French) and that hauntology/ontology is literally that – a theory of being, a way of being in the world that we think is dead, but that decides how we will think and how we will behave. The exorcism of these ghosts requires us to first hear the stories they have to tell us. It is those ghosts that will help us unlearn our privileges and finally to share in a future otherwise denied us. Our sorrow should not be directed at those our ancestors dispossessed – but rather it should be directed at ourselves and the reconciliation our current privileges deny us in participating in. For the sake of our own souls, these potential histories have become an immediate necessity. If only we can find the courage to face the ghosts of our pasts.
The answer to these questions, and why saying sorry was so important, is that white people still continue today to be privileged by the crimes of the past. We still have the land, we still have better life expectations on virtually any measure you choose. And I benefit from those privileges regardless of my active participation in the crimes that provided them to me – purely due to the colour of my skin. That is one of the hardest things to see. We are much more aware of the benefits we think others have than those we have received. A survey published today said, “When asked why Indigenous Australians experience disadvantage, 58% said it was the result of personal decisions they make, while 42% said it was systemic: a product of colonial history and ongoing discrimination.” Australia is a meritocracy – how could this result be otherwise?
And that is what this book is about – unlearning imperialism, unlearning white privilege, unlearning what is otherwise taken-for-granted. The actual title is important to think about too – Potential History. Not actual history – we already know that is written by the victors, but potential history, the history that would be written if those without a voice were provided with the opportunity to document their pasts, their worlds.
Unlearning is not the same as forgetting. Unlearning requires us to remember. But we need new ways to remember, or rather to (re)collect the past. That is, the facts are mostly all there – although, we will see this is rarely completely true. The facts just need to be reordered into other narratives and stories that allow us to make better sense of the richness of history.
This book speaks a lot about the archive. Now, for a long time I worked as an archivist. An archivist finds ways to preserve documents and records. These words are much more literal than people often take them to be. We tend to think of records and documents are bits of paper – and so any bit of paper will do. But records literally record something – generally a decision – and the same is true of documents. So, archivists are obsessed with provenance. That is, if I am an archivist for a particular organisation I will retain documents that record decision made by that organisation, and not really be too concerned with those from other organisations. I may choose to retain other documents that provide context, but these might well be ephemera, rather than documentation as records of decisions. The context they provide is all well and good, but it is secondary and of limited relevance to the main point of the archive – that is, documenting the past. This is the first level of filtering that determines what is retained in the archive and what is dispose of from the archive. Actually, in Archives speak, all decisions of retention and disposition are decision of disposal – the document is either disposed of in the bin or it is disposed of in an archive box. Retention and disposition are two sides of the same coin. Other decisions are secondary, but no less important. How will I classify various records? Which series will this particular record be deemed to belong to? How does this particular record document the decisions made? These are important because they help explain why certain documents are retained and others tossed. The implications these decisions have for those without power – without the power to make decisions – should be clear. If they did not make decisions there can be no record of those decisions. Retention is impossible for documents that do not exist. This idea forms a large part of this book – the idea that many events occurred, for example, the rape of German women after the Second World War, but no photographs were taken of these events and so histories skirt around these events since they exist within a twilight world that is not recorded and not documented. How do you open the archive and record those decisions? How do you show photographs that were never taken?
Foucault begins The Order of Things with an extended quote from a short story by Borges about a Chinese Encyclopedia in which animals are classified with reference to how they look from a distance or whether the emperor owns them or not. The point being this means of classifying is totally at odds with Western notions of classification and with ‘common sense’. Common sense is something Einstein referred to as the deposit of prejudice laid down in the mind before the age of 18. Common sense works in the interests of power. It classifies according to the dictates of power. As such, the victors do more than merely write history – they create the conditions upon which any logical history can be written too. Here are my classifications – now, write your history… Inevitably, the history you write will need to match those prejudices and classifications. Their constraints will be invisible to you since they are, as Bourdieu would say, ideas you think with, rather than about. The trap is complete.
So, how do we go about unlearning these categories, particularly when so many of the records and documents of these alternative histories either do not exist or are defined as peripheral by the categorisation principles that created the archive in the first place? This is where the ‘potential’ in potential histories comes to the fore. This is where our openness to hearing these alternative facts and orderings allows us to challenge our taken-for-granted understandings of the past and see that other orderings and classifications are possible.
This book is written by a Jewish woman from occupied Palestine. She is seeking, at least in part, in this book to unlearn her privilege. And she acknowledges that this is not a simple task. The history of separation between her and the past of the people whose land has been dispossessed has forced certain ways of thinking upon her that are likely to constantly trip her up in her conscious unlearning. Worse than this, the separation that is at the heart of the Zionist project is not merely between Jews and Palestinians, but also between Jews and their own histories – histories that dated back to prior to the occupation. She has, for instance, no knowledge of the languages of her grandparents -who all learnt Hebrew and unlearned their native tongues. She begins by saying she has no objects in her possession of the worlds her families came from. This is not the same as the Palestinians who live in a land where the towns and villages they grew up in have been bulldozed to the ground and turned into national parks, which is obviously much worse, but it still remains a process of eradication and denial. Unlearning is not a process of forgetting, but rather of learning anew. In many ways, the task before a Jew in occupied Palestine is harder than that of a Palestinian, since privilege is reinforced by common sense and documented in archives that have consciously refused to record this alternative past.
This process of unlearning is confronting. It makes demands that are more than just listening to alternative stories. It also demands learning to imagine a future where multiple stories are allowed to coexist. And more than this, to imagine a future where Jews in occupied Palestine are finally liberated from their own past. In much the same way that Australia will never be free of its past until some form of reconciliation, truth telling and recompense has been paid to those we have dispossessed. The horrors and crimes of the past live on as ghosts. We are haunted by them. As Derrida said in Specters of Marx, these ghosts provided us with an hauntology (something that sounds like ontology in French) and that hauntology/ontology is literally that – a theory of being, a way of being in the world that we think is dead, but that decides how we will think and how we will behave. The exorcism of these ghosts requires us to first hear the stories they have to tell us. It is those ghosts that will help us unlearn our privileges and finally to share in a future otherwise denied us. Our sorrow should not be directed at those our ancestors dispossessed – but rather it should be directed at ourselves and the reconciliation our current privileges deny us in participating in. For the sake of our own souls, these potential histories have become an immediate necessity. If only we can find the courage to face the ghosts of our pasts.
October 14, 2023
The most captivating aspect of Azoulay's work to me personally is her masterful revelation of the concealed truths within the photographic archives of wars. She exposes the overlooked and disavowed dimensions that the archival regime conveniently hides away. As readers, we are confronted with the uncomfortable reality that certain forms of violence, such as the rape of Germans after World War II, have been conveniently erased from the annals of history.
Through meticulous research and compelling arguments, Azoulay unveils the connection between the concealment of 'oftentimes deemed as minor' atrocities and the language and concepts of imperial governance. Consequently, it becomes perceptible that the realm of photography archival and museums, in conjunction with other archival methodologies, assumes the guise of an imperial technology, perpetuating a mechanism of shutters that seal the portals of our collective memory and only show part of history.
The author further reveals the deployment of terms such as sovereignty, citizenship, democracy, and peace as instruments of categorization, exclusion, and control, which not only shield the past and its perpetrators from meaningful scrutiny but also serve to strengthen the underlying framework of imperial knowledge and modes of thinking. Added to these concepts are the imperial tools: institutions such as museums, virtual tools such as documentaries, and universally embraced ideals, such as human rights. These institutions and concepts not only shape our perception of history but also become tools that perpetuate the imperial world, maintaining the existing power structures and systematically excluding marginalized groups from the narrative fabric. She then proposes the solutions: Unlearning imperialism and embracing a potential history where these tools of oppression are dismantled, and the unfair negotiations over human lives are eradicated.
This work, beyond its sheer educational values, elicits profound anguish, as the reader can sense the author's discontent with the world as it is. Azoulay's yearning for a future where these imperial structures no longer hold sway and when imperial violence is diminished permeates the pages. All in all, this book serves as a poignant reminder, both simple and complex, that we must actively strive for a world where the voices of all are heard and where the injustices of the past are acknowledged and rectified. We must consciously unlearn the lessons we have been taught and recognize the imperial technologies at play. And we must not forget any plights, no matter how small they were.
Through meticulous research and compelling arguments, Azoulay unveils the connection between the concealment of 'oftentimes deemed as minor' atrocities and the language and concepts of imperial governance. Consequently, it becomes perceptible that the realm of photography archival and museums, in conjunction with other archival methodologies, assumes the guise of an imperial technology, perpetuating a mechanism of shutters that seal the portals of our collective memory and only show part of history.
The author further reveals the deployment of terms such as sovereignty, citizenship, democracy, and peace as instruments of categorization, exclusion, and control, which not only shield the past and its perpetrators from meaningful scrutiny but also serve to strengthen the underlying framework of imperial knowledge and modes of thinking. Added to these concepts are the imperial tools: institutions such as museums, virtual tools such as documentaries, and universally embraced ideals, such as human rights. These institutions and concepts not only shape our perception of history but also become tools that perpetuate the imperial world, maintaining the existing power structures and systematically excluding marginalized groups from the narrative fabric. She then proposes the solutions: Unlearning imperialism and embracing a potential history where these tools of oppression are dismantled, and the unfair negotiations over human lives are eradicated.
This work, beyond its sheer educational values, elicits profound anguish, as the reader can sense the author's discontent with the world as it is. Azoulay's yearning for a future where these imperial structures no longer hold sway and when imperial violence is diminished permeates the pages. All in all, this book serves as a poignant reminder, both simple and complex, that we must actively strive for a world where the voices of all are heard and where the injustices of the past are acknowledged and rectified. We must consciously unlearn the lessons we have been taught and recognize the imperial technologies at play. And we must not forget any plights, no matter how small they were.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 29, 2021
This book put words so many phenomena I have observed throughout my life. Time to unlearn imperialism and regain sovereignty over innovation, technology, culture, ourselves.
May 19, 2023
«Where is the world to which each of them belongs?»
Wow. This book is just… mind-blowing.
Wow. This book is just… mind-blowing.
March 1, 2025
"História Potencial: Desaprender o Imperialismo" é uma obra que pode ser comparada a uma briga, onde o leitor entra de mãos limpas, enquanto a autora parte para cima sem um pingo de remorso, armada com dois punhais em cada mão. Cada frase, parágrafo e página é uma tortura cerebral—não pela qualidade acadêmica, que é estupenda, mas pela extrema dificuldade de condução narrativa. Ariella Aïsha Azoulay é uma escritora desafiadora, que não tem remorso algum em exibir seus anos de vida acadêmica por meio de frases meticulosamente construídas em uma arquitetura hostil para o leitor menos familiarizado com o tema (e que, no meu caso, fui eu). Suas ideias, com mais de mil significados, sua forma detalhista e sensível impressionam pela maestria com que domina e representa o conteúdo nos três capítulos selecionados pela Ubu nesta versão física.
O livro aborda como a história, tal como a conhecemos, é, na verdade, um ato de imperialismo. Os documentos, arquivos, museus e memoriais são, todos, tecnologias sociais impregnadas por uma força invisível do progressismo arrebatador, que dissimula e altera o passado em prol de um futuro neutro, controlado e sem um lado oficial, mas que sempre privilegia a ideia imperial de uma história sobre a outra. A autora, de forma engenhosa, constrói seu argumento de maneira impressionante, recheada de conteúdo, e propõe que devemos substituir o conceito tradicional de "história" pelo de "História Potencial", enquanto desaprendemos essa narrativa que nos foi imposta, muitas vezes antes de nosso nascimento, em um mundo já politicamente moldado.
Levei três meses de intenso labor físico e mental para ler esse livro. Cheguei a secar duas canetas de tantas anotações e estudos que fiz durante a leitura. A dificuldade e a prolixidade assustadora do início se traduzem em uma confusão para o público menos acostumado. Demorei a compreender a síntese da ideia que Azoulay queria transmitir em seus parágrafos de múltiplos significados e, por vezes, irônicos. Provavelmente, esse foi o livro mais difícil que li até hoje. Tenho a leve impressão de que não absorvi tudo e que só estaria realmente preparado para lê-lo com mais facilidade se meu conhecimento estivesse em um nível de mestrado ou doutorado. Como não é o caso, apanhei consideravelmente dessa autora brilhante.
Vale muito a pena ler o livro, mas ele exige um conhecimento prévio sobre alguns tópicos: geopolítica do Oriente Médio, hebraico básico ou intermediário, história da Palestina e de Israel, o conflito Israel x Palestina, história social e cultural universal, escravidão afro-americana, tráfico de escravizados negros, e as dinâmicas de poder e perpetuação do poder segundo Michel Foucault.
Ou, caso contrário, basta ter resistência mental para aguentar as horas de leitura e pesquisa em cima do livro.
Eu fui pelo segundo caminho.
O livro aborda como a história, tal como a conhecemos, é, na verdade, um ato de imperialismo. Os documentos, arquivos, museus e memoriais são, todos, tecnologias sociais impregnadas por uma força invisível do progressismo arrebatador, que dissimula e altera o passado em prol de um futuro neutro, controlado e sem um lado oficial, mas que sempre privilegia a ideia imperial de uma história sobre a outra. A autora, de forma engenhosa, constrói seu argumento de maneira impressionante, recheada de conteúdo, e propõe que devemos substituir o conceito tradicional de "história" pelo de "História Potencial", enquanto desaprendemos essa narrativa que nos foi imposta, muitas vezes antes de nosso nascimento, em um mundo já politicamente moldado.
Levei três meses de intenso labor físico e mental para ler esse livro. Cheguei a secar duas canetas de tantas anotações e estudos que fiz durante a leitura. A dificuldade e a prolixidade assustadora do início se traduzem em uma confusão para o público menos acostumado. Demorei a compreender a síntese da ideia que Azoulay queria transmitir em seus parágrafos de múltiplos significados e, por vezes, irônicos. Provavelmente, esse foi o livro mais difícil que li até hoje. Tenho a leve impressão de que não absorvi tudo e que só estaria realmente preparado para lê-lo com mais facilidade se meu conhecimento estivesse em um nível de mestrado ou doutorado. Como não é o caso, apanhei consideravelmente dessa autora brilhante.
Vale muito a pena ler o livro, mas ele exige um conhecimento prévio sobre alguns tópicos: geopolítica do Oriente Médio, hebraico básico ou intermediário, história da Palestina e de Israel, o conflito Israel x Palestina, história social e cultural universal, escravidão afro-americana, tráfico de escravizados negros, e as dinâmicas de poder e perpetuação do poder segundo Michel Foucault.
Ou, caso contrário, basta ter resistência mental para aguentar as horas de leitura e pesquisa em cima do livro.
Eu fui pelo segundo caminho.
May 10, 2025
O livro "História potencial" de Ariella Azoulay traz uma perspectiva sobre o imperialismo de uma forma bastante contraditória, apesar de apresentar bons argumentos em algumas seções. Ela inicia o texto de uma forma atacante, passando mais a impressão de uma acusação no lugar de uma exposição, mas esse comportamento diminui ao longo do capítulo 1. Capítulo este interessante contendo boas ideias sobre a forma de documentação e arquivos, deixando evidente o modo imperialista de "fazer história", como as histórias que conhecemos sobre o mundo na educação formal, levando a uma reflexão sobre como países colonizadores se apropriam e preservam objetos de outros povos de uma forma que apaga suas existências e os reduz àquilo. Entretanto, Azoulay não foge desse pensamento. Ela enfatiza a necessidade de protagonizar outros povos, mas deixa esse papel na responsabilidade dos "privilegiados", deixando os "outros povos" à margem, usando-os para construir o que ela quer construir, "salvando"-os e não os incluindo. O capítulo 2 retoma o comportamento atacante da autora e torna a leitura confusa, repetitiva e desconfortável ao ponto de me fazer não querer ler o resto.
Um dos melhores pontos do "História Potencial" é certamente o "Desaprender o Imperialismo".
O livro conta com o marcador de "fotografia", mas a fotografia é pouco abordada, mais como um complemento da documentação e do arquivo e uma forma de relação social, além da metáfora estranha com o obturador. Nesse livro, a autora não busca discutir a fotografia em si.
Livros acadêmicos militantes me cansam pela linguagem confusa e inacessível para pessoas de fora do meio acadêmico, por mais que os livros sejam, em grande parte, sobre esse público, mas não para esse público.
Os cidadãos "privilegiados" não são "privilegiados". Poder acessar seus direitos essenciais não é um privilégio. O erro não está em quem acessa, está em quem impede ou dificulta o acesso do outro. Não é o cidadão comum que está errado.
2.5
Um dos melhores pontos do "História Potencial" é certamente o "Desaprender o Imperialismo".
O livro conta com o marcador de "fotografia", mas a fotografia é pouco abordada, mais como um complemento da documentação e do arquivo e uma forma de relação social, além da metáfora estranha com o obturador. Nesse livro, a autora não busca discutir a fotografia em si.
Livros acadêmicos militantes me cansam pela linguagem confusa e inacessível para pessoas de fora do meio acadêmico, por mais que os livros sejam, em grande parte, sobre esse público, mas não para esse público.
Os cidadãos "privilegiados" não são "privilegiados". Poder acessar seus direitos essenciais não é um privilégio. O erro não está em quem acessa, está em quem impede ou dificulta o acesso do outro. Não é o cidadão comum que está errado.
2.5
April 22, 2025
Azoulay has many valid and inspiring points about how to approach archive, museum and people’s lives associated with them. In some ways one wonders whether her proposal is so different from the so-called history of the present. But at the same times, for any one who still practice history as a critical vocation, one cannot help but feel that Azoulay writes off too much in her sweeping indictment od imperial violence, which as a term just numbingly repeats itself throughout the book again and again to the point of outright rhetorical flattening. In this process of writing off, Azoulay might have presented a valid critique of history and a potential conversation with historians into a totalising indictment of an entire discipline and its practice, which to this reader feels excessive.it is important to note for instance that how historians of empire mean by empire is in fact very different from what Azoulay means by it. This is a distinction that readers would benefit from making and understanding. Especially the fact that historians treat empire as historically variable phenomenon that stretches the globe across west and non west across ancient and modern periods, whereas Azoulay’s empire is more or less equivalent to the onset of Western colonialism since 1492 and the modern world system and is more or less an invariable totalising concept. Historians should consider the ethics of the archive more and the ethics of writing more, but I cannot square myself with the simple equation of history with imperial violence, because there are just too many examples to show that history as it has been practiced often by the most intelligent and politically engaged scholars can be used against imperial violence. We need charitable dialogue across disciplines not outright condemnation that makes dialogue impossible.
December 30, 2024
É possível pensar a imagem fotográfica antes mesmo da invenção da fotografia? A historiadora e teórica da cultura visual nos diz que sim. A imagem, antes mesmo de ser um suporte visual para representar algo, é um elemento que possui uma filosofia própria, é concebida de modo a instrumentalizarmos o mundo. Mas em prol de que ou de quem? São perguntas que envolvem discussões intermináveis. Vale muito a pena a leitura!
May 18, 2025
My whole heart. Oh my god.
Btw, I finished the first full draft of my philosophy thesis last week. It is about coloniality and history. And this book, its concept of Potential History, is so deeply resonant with all that I've been working on??? I wish I had found this earlier. I would've been elated. But hey, perhaps all the next things I do, writing or otherwise, will be deeply inspired by this.
Btw, I finished the first full draft of my philosophy thesis last week. It is about coloniality and history. And this book, its concept of Potential History, is so deeply resonant with all that I've been working on??? I wish I had found this earlier. I would've been elated. But hey, perhaps all the next things I do, writing or otherwise, will be deeply inspired by this.
January 25, 2024
One of my best reads for the past few years. The book revolutionised my thinking in many ways. Will have to think through what I can say carefully because Azoulay produced a mangum opus and would hate to understate its importance and effect on me due to a rushed review. Having said all of that: I recommend. Recommend. Recommend.
Read
February 14, 2023Super academic tone.
June 12, 2025
Esse livro tem uma ideia muito boa e é legal, mas achei muito repetitivo. Legal pra ir construindo uma biblioteca, ler coisas mais interessantes.
July 29, 2025
monumental. please trash „dialectic of enlightenment“: this is what everyone should read.
July 28, 2025
compelling book, but a surprisingly reductive reading of Trouillot
August 18, 2024
‘The work of reparations is not about to begin—it didn’t stop. It was never dependent on the dubious generosity of perpetrators. These claims consisted first and foremost of the tedious labor of worldbuilding resting on the firm assertion that violence inflicted was and is forever unforgivable, even if individuals could be and are being forgiven. This assertion was transmitted throughout generations, and no perpetrator could steal it. This assertion began at the moment of dispossession.’
May the worldlessness of the world be grasped by all citizens and nurtured into reparations where no citizen is disabled of their rights and no citizen is trapped into the role of perpetrator.
May the worldlessness of the world be grasped by all citizens and nurtured into reparations where no citizen is disabled of their rights and no citizen is trapped into the role of perpetrator.
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